Eugene Atget

To assume that the principal value of Atget's work lies in its
sociological or architectural documentation is to miss the true import
of his art. Not every photograph Atget produced has grace or meaning.
Often he may have photographed with little interest in the subject, only
for the purpose of fulfilling a commission. Other photographs obviously
derive from the personal satisfaction taken in the pleasure of visual
experience or in the recognition of significant fact. Atget was an
artist with a highly developed sense of pictorial logic. To experience
an Atget photograph is to undergo an adventure in seeing. "It is the
photographer's business to see," said H.P. Robinson in 1869. No one saw
better than Atget.

The real consequence of his art, however, is in the cumulative effect of
the entire body of work. It seems apt to compare Atget's oeuvre to a
great Gothic cathedral. Rough and uneven when examined in detail, it is
often enigmatic and at times disjointed in the manner of its
construction. Like the cathedral, it contains many diverse parts: some
shape its main structure, others provide networks of buttressing
support, still others serve as fanciful ornamentation. Yet, like the
cathedral, it rises heavenward as a whole: a hymn to the greatness and
complexity of the human soul with its interweaving of grand aspirations
and humble realities.

This episode of the BBC TV series 'The Genius of Photography' begins with some comments about Atget before a discussion of the work of Man Ray. The surrealists, working in Paris in the 20s and 30s, were fascinated by Atget and Man Ray, in particular, sparked a fashion for Atget's work among avant garde artists of the period. For a while both men were working in the same Paris street.